It’s the Little Things

Grief is a universal experience. Not something everyone experiences in the same way, but something everyone will experience eventually. 

Everyone talks about the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance— but no one really talks about the little things that happen, the things that truly break you. 

When my dad died, I expected the heartbreak, confusion, and pain. I expected everything people warn you about. But what I didn’t expect were the little things that broke me even more. The quiet, the loneliness, the feeling that half of me was missing, and the reminders that show up when you least expect them. 

The quiet and loneliness go hand in hand. It’s not literal silence, but the moments when you suddenly forget how to talk to people, or when people don’t know what to say to you. Or when you go from people checking in on you and reaching out all the time to just an occasional “how are you ” text. It’s the moments when everyone else forgets, but you never will. That’s the loneliness. 

And the loneliness isn’t just about other people, it’s internal too. It’s sitting in a room full of people and still feeling completely alone. It’s wanting to explain how you feel but not having the words to do it, or feeling like even if you tried, no one would fully understand. 

That feeling of loneliness also comes into play when you feel like half of you is missing. Because it is. Half of the person that you are made of is gone. Most people experience this at some point, but experiencing it earlier in life, when you are still developing, during the time when parents are needed most, feels like a different kind of loss. It’s not just grieving who they were, but grieving who you were supposed to be with them.

The remembrance gets me the most. It’s when you see TikTok videos of father-daughter dances or fathers walking their daughters down the aisle that it hits. Or when you see kids pranking their dads or being comforted on a first breakup. It’s in those small, ordinary moments that you’re reminded you will never get to experience that. 

No one really prepares you for that part. Not the big, overwhelming waves of grief, but the small ones that come out of nowhere and stay longer than you expect. The ones that don’t get easier, just quieter. 

And the thing is, nobody talks about that part of grief. You only hear about the main stages, but never the little reminders you have on a daily basis. No one tells you that grief doesn’t just come in big, overwhelming waves, but in small, quiet moments that catch you off guard. 

They don’t talk about how it shows up when you’re doing completely normal things, like driving, scrolling on your phone, or sitting in class. How it can hit you in the middle of a random Tuesday when nothing even seems wrong. Theres no warning, no buildup, it just happens. 

And they definitely don’t talk about how long that part lasts. How those little moments don’t just go away after a few months or even a few years. They just become something you learn to live with. Something that randomly reminds you that your life is split into a before and an after. 

I think that’s the hardest part: realizing that this version of life, the one without them, is the version you have to keep living in. And no one really explains how to do that. 

• #dad
• #grief
• #loss
• #mentalhealth